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hurrengoa
Tim Buckley ainger   Destiny has always been a bit capricious with rock stars and has compiled quite a curious list of giant myths. These demi-gods found deadliness in HIFI and at the same time quenched both the public’s and the Hard Rock Café’s gurus’ myth-making thirst. Rock is full of doom filled biographies, all that and worse. It’s much more educational and enjoyable to delve into the bad-luck rock legend stories than to look at the mythical stories displayed in B-Movies, even if they don’t have any official fan clubs. Tim did everything he had to do. He complied with all the obligations; he did all the legal and illegal substances, got himself entangled in many a mini-skirt, he was beautiful and wild and he lost his battle against the hard-hearted record companies. Like the rest of his generation, he knocked on heaven’s door, but that too was full of longhairs looking for fame and glory. Gods & Monsters. Why didn’t he pact with the devil so? Maybe Ol’ Nick was just too busy at the time.
It was just as well that Buddhism and Hinduism became the “in” creeds around the mid sixties because these devastated souls could then seek refuge in those beliefs and the rhythms of the sitar. Shameless destiny denied Tim his success, like any other unrecognised genius. Unjust luck, even though he was as sharp of mind as anyone else. Dream Brother. If you wanted to take the whole thing to a flawless scenario, Tim would have realised that he would have to pay over his way he would have come up with a more appropriate and better module in which he could have finished everything off and improved himself. At the age of twenty he created Scotty Guibert, abandoned the rented womb and he waited until the child was eight years old. Goodbye And Hello. The transmigration was finally finished in 1975 with beautifully styled staging. Tim Buckley’s stage performance under those hot lights. Hallelujah. The young Scotty, smitten by the sound of those trance in front of his mother. Someone backstage called “Jeff!” and right there and then, with a new name, he sucked in all that amplified energy. Two months later, Tim sniffed heroin for the last time. Jeff was quite clear on his last release. The Last Goodbye. He could play any instrument you can think of (an ability he carried over from his previous life), he maintained the strong Buckley voice, the musical dreamer’s ability to write songs so easily and the startling good looks. Grace. Jeff blew them all away at the age of 28 with his solo release. It’s so easy to see that the record was made by somebody in a state of grace, sung with the voice of angels, a record that displayed amazing internal emotion with less folk and more universal vigour. Eternal Life. All he had to do was come to the end of his journey, follow the river down to the sea. Tim left absolutely everything ready and in song promised the water spirits they would return later. Song to the Siren. Oh what foolish negligence when he jumped, fully clothed, into the Mississippi as if it were the Ganges. He could at least have taken his shoes off... on the floating, shipless oceans...